Sandman1221
07-29-2020, 07:40 AM
Hi Everyone, I decided to start using my old KT 7500 FM tuner again, started with a dipole antenna and found that grounding the tuner to the electrical face plate ground screw improved reception, then added a omni directional antenna in the attic and got even better reception (connected using the 75 ohm connection and made sure the outer wires were touching the 75 ohm connection clamp). Also made sure power cords did not touch signal cables and plugged everything into a UPS. But still had signal noise with stations 20-30 miles away. Saw a youtube video on cleaning the air capacitor (tuning apparatus that the tuning knob rotates) so used WD40 with Qtips a thinned chopstick and a toothbrush to carefully clean and lubricate the ends of each of the 5 gangs (it was very clean to start with but had some tiny original bits of brass laying around). And to my amazement the tuner reception went way up (station that only hit 3 on signal meter in wide mode was now at 5 in narrow mode) and the background noise went way down on the problem stations! The sound is now CD quaility. I am guessing the lubrication was important for the FM signal to pass through the 5 gangs in the tuning air capacitor. So a heads up for those of you with old analogue tuners that have lost sensitivity and increased background noise.